As it behoves my daughter, and your honour: OPH. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me. POL. Affection? puh! you speak like a green girl, Unfifted in fuch perilous circumstance. Do you 8 believe his tenders, as you call them? ОPH. I do not know, my lord, what I fhould think. POL. Marry, I'll teach you think yourself a baby; That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay, Which are not fterling. Tender yourself more dearly; Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrafe, 8 Unfifted in fuch perilous circumftance.] Unfifted for untried. Untried fignifies either not tempted, or not refined; unfifted fignifies the latter only, though the fenfe requires the former. WARBURTON. It means, I believe, one who has not fufficiently confidered, or thoroughly fifted fuch matters. M. MASON. I do not think that the fenfe requires us to understand untempted. "Unfifted in" &c. means, I think, one who has not nicely canvaffed and examined the peril of her fituation. MALONE. 9 Tender yourself more dearly; Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrafe, Wronging it thus,) you'll tender me a fool.] The parenthefis is clofed at the wrong place; and we must have likewife a flight correction in the laft verfe. [Wringing it &c.] Polonius is racking and playing on the word tender, till he thinks proper to correct himfelf for the licence; and then he would fay-not farther to crack the wind of the phrase, by twisting it and contorting it, as I have done. WARBURTON. I believe the word wronging has reference, not to the phrafe, but to Ophelia; if you go on wronging it thus, that is, if you con OPH. My lord, he hath impórtun'd me with love, In honourable fashion. POL. Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. OPH. And hath given countenance to his fpeech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of heaven. POL. Ay, fpringes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the foul tinue to go on thus wrong. This is a mode of speaking perhaps not very grammatical, but very common; nor have the best writers refufed it. "To finner it or faint it," is in Pope. And Rowe, 66 Thus to coy it, "With one who knows you too.” The folio has it-Roaming it thus. That is, letting yourself loofe to fuch improper liberty, But wronging seems to be more proper. JOHNSON. "See you do not coy it," is in Maflinger's New Way to pay old Debts. STEEVENS. I have followed the punctuation of the first quarto, 1604, where the parenthesis is extended to the word thus, to which word the context in my apprehenfion clearly fhews it fhould be carried. "Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrafe, playing upon it, and abufing it thus,") &c. So, in The Rape of Lucrece: "To wrong the wronger, till he render right." The quarto, by the mistake of the compofitor, reads-Wrong it thus. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. Tender yourself more dearly;] To tender is to regard with affection. So, in King Richard II: And fo betide me, "As well I tender you and all of yours." Again, in The Maydes Metamorphofis, by Lyly, 1601: 2 -if you account us for the fame "That tender thee, and love Apollo's name." MALONE. fashion you may call it ;] She ufes fashion for manner, and he for a tranfient practice. JOHNSON. 3Springes to catch woodcocks.] A proverbial faying, "Every woman has a Springe to catch a woodcock." STEEVENS. Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,* 4-thefe blazes, daughter,] Some epithet to blazes was probably omitted, by the careleffness of the tranfcriber or compofitor, in the first quarto, in confequence of which the metre is defective. MALONE. 5 Set your entreatments-] Entreatments here mean company, converfation, from the French entrétien. JOHNSON. Entreatments, I rather think,,means the objects of entreaty; the favours for which lovers fue. In the next fcene we have a word of a fimilar formation : MALONE. PoPE. "As if it fome impartment did defire," &c. 6 larger tether-] A ftring to tie horfes. Tether is that ftring by which an animal, fet to graze in grounds uninclofed, is confined within the proper limits. JOHNSON. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1601" To tye the ape and the bear in one tedder." Tether is a ftring by which any animal is fastened, whether for the fake of feeding or the air. STEEVENS. "Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers-] A broker in old English meant a bad or pimp. See the Gloffary to Gawin Douglafs's tranflation of Virgil. So, in King John: "This bawd, this broker," &c. See alfo Vol. XI. p. 450, n. 9. In our author's Lover's Com plaint we again meet wtih the fame expreffion, applied in the fame manner: "Know, vows are ever brokers to defiling." MALONE. * Breathing like fanctified and pious bonds,] On which the editor, The better to beguile. This is for all, Mr. Theobald, remarks, Though all the editors have swallowed this reading implicitly, it is certainly corrupt; and I have been furprized how men of genius and learning could let it pass without fome Jufpicion. What idea can we frame to ourselves of a breathing bond, or of its being fan&tified and pious, &c. But he was too hafty in framing ideas before he understood thofe already framed by the poet, and expreffed in very plain words. Do not believe (fays Polonius to his daughter) Hamlet's amorous vows made to you; which pretend religion in them (the better to beguile) like thofe fanctified and pious vows [or bonds] made to heaven. And why fhould not this pass without fufpicion? WARBURTON. Theobald for bonds fubftitutes bawds. JOHNSON. Notwithstanding Warburton's elaborate explanation of this paffage, I have not the least doubt but Theobald is right, and that we ought to read bawds inftead of bonds. Indeed the prefent reading is little better than nonfenfe. Polonius had called Hamlet's vows, brokers, but two lines before, a fynonymous word to bards, and the very title that Shakspeare gives to Pandarus, in his Troilus and Creffida. The words implorators of unholy fuits, are an exact description of a bard; and all fuch of them as are crafty in their trade, put on the appearance of fanctity, and are "not of that die which their investments fhew." M. MASON. The old reading is undoubtedly the true one. Do not, fays Polonius, believe his vows, for they are merely uttered for the purpose of persuading you to yield to a criminal paffion, though they appear only the genuine effufions of a pure and lawful affection, and affume the femblance of thofe facred engagements entered into at the altar of wedlock. The bonds here in our poet's thoughts were bonds of love. So, in his 142d Sonnet: thofe lips of thine, "That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments, "And feal'd falfe bonds of love, as oft as mine." Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "O, ten times fafter Venus pigeons fly, "To feal love's bonds new made, than they are wont "To keep obliged faith unforfeited." "Sanctified and pious bonds," are the true bonds of love, or, as our poet has elsewhere expreffed it, "A contract and eternal bond of love." Dr. Warburton certainly misunderstood this paffage; and when he triumphantly afks" may not this pafs without fufpicion?" if he means his own comment, the answer is, because it is not perfectly accurate. MALONE. I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, [Exeunt. Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. HAM. The air bites fhrewdly; it is very HOR. cold. I think, it lacks of twelve. MAR. No, it is struck. HOR. Indeed? I heard it not; it then draws near the season, Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. [A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance foot off, What does this mean, my lord? HAM. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his roufe,' 9 I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, Have you fo flander any moment's leifure,] Polonius fays, in plain terms, that is, not in language lefs elevated or embellished than before, but in terms that cannot be misunderstood: I would not have you fo difgrace your most idle moments, as not to find better employment for them than lord Hamlet's converfation. JOHNSON. 2 —an eager air.] That is, a fharp air, aigre, Fr. So, in a fubfequent scene: "And curd, like eager droppings into milk." MALONE. takes his roufe,] A roufe is a large dofe of liquor, a debauch. So, in Othello: " they have given me a rouse already.” 3 1 |